I studied Classics (lettere classiche) at the University of Palermo (BA 1995), Paris VII, and the Freie Universität Berlin, and received the PhD in 2000 from the University of Palermo. After several post-doc grants (Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung; University of Pavia; University of Palermo) I was hired as Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter at the Collaborative Research Center “Transformations of Antiquity” (SFB 644) at the Humboldt-University in Berlin (2005-2012). In 2005 I was awarded a Frances Yates Fellowship at the Warburg Institute in London and was selected to be a Research Associate at the Italian Academy of Advanced Study at Columbia University, New York in 2008-2009. Since 2013 I have been Professor of Latin Literature at Ghent University, where I am also a member of the Sarton Centre of the History of Science and principal investigator of an ongoing project on “Epitome in Late Latin Literature” (2015-2019). I specialize in the literature and poetics of late antiquity; ancient literature of knowledge; acts and passions of the early Christian martyrs; the Panegyrici Latini; masochism in ancient and modern literature. In general my approach is to read texts with attention to textuality itself as a vehicle for meanings that may not be immediately visible, making use of hermeneutical tools such as allegory and macrotextuality. Most recently, I have launched with the publisher Winter in Heidelberg the book series “The Library of the Other Antiquity”, devoted to the study of late antique literature and its reception.
